The CommonSense Party has four candidates at the local election this week.

Howard Thomas contests the central Abbey ward where Tony Page is up for re-election, Mike Diamond is the candidate in Whitley, Matt Plunkett for Kentwood while Kim Maysh stands in the Church ward.

The CommonSense party say it is concentrating on pushing for solutions to the problems that we all face on our roads in Reading. They believe much of the congestion is deliberately created by the policies adopted by Reading Borough Council (RBC).

They say: “A classic example of this is the Shinfield Road debacle that was supposedly done in the name of ‘safety’, but when the facts are examined properly the roundabouts that were taken out had no part in many of the accidents on that road. RBC have for a number of years implemented schemes that have made matters worse and we want to see this strategy reversed.

“There are lots of alterations that could be carried out to junctions in this town that could improve traffic flow and we want to see a positive attitude by RBC to help this happen.

“We want to see pedestrians have a fair and safe deal

“There are issues, we feel, with the plans to build various very tall buildings around the centre of the town.

“With regard to ‘green’ issues its an interesting point that the pollution levels around the Shinfield Rd are higher now than pre traffic light scheme while traffic levels have fallen by about a third showing that queued traffic doesn’t help the environment.”